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The Human Factor

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Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.

Silence

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The Comedians

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The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation

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The Destructors and Other Stories

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The Great Heresies

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A Handful of Dust

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Le Pere Goriot

Honoré de Balzac uses his classic style of detail to describe a most controversial setting in his novel Le Pere Goriot. The story takes place in Paris just after the fall of Napoleon in 1819. The story focuses on three characters, Rastignac, a student who wants to try and make it big in the capital, Vautrin, an interesting and funny character who is also quite mysterious, and the main character, Goriot, that carries a heavy burden that only a loving parent would endure.

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The Violent Bear It Away

The orphaned Francis Marion Tarwater and his cousin, Rayber, defy the prophecy of their dead uncle - that Tarwater will become a prophet and will baptize Rayber's young son, Bishop. A series of struggles ensue, as Tarwater fights an internal battle against his innate faith and the voices calling him to be a prophet, while Rayber tries to draw Tarwater into a more “reasonable” modern world. Both wrestle with the legacy of their dead relatives and lay claim to Bishop's soul.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

This now classic book revealed Flannery O’Connor as one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often comic situations in which the principal character faces a problem of salvation: the grandmother, in the title story, confronting the murderous Misfit; a neglected four-year-old boy looking for the Kingdom of Christ in the fast-flowing waters of the river; General Sash, about to meet the final enemy.

Publisher's Summary

Graham Greene explores corruption and atonement in this penetrating novel set in 1930s Mexico during the era of Communist religious persecutions. As revolutionaries determine to stamp out the evils of the church through violence, the last Roman Catholic priest is on the lam, hunted by a police lieutenant. Despite his own sense of worthlessness—he is a heavy drinker and has fathered an illegitimate child—he is determined to continue to function as a priest until captured. He is contrasted with Padre Jose, a priest who has accepted marriage and embodies humiliation.

A Christian parable pitting God and religion against 20th-century materialism, The Power and the Glory is considered by many, including the author himself, to be Greene’s best work.

I found this performance difficult to hear. I could not enjoy the story while straining to hear the words.<br/><br/>I like listening to audiobooks in the car, which is admittedly a poor acoustical environment. However, I can hear all the other audiobooks i have purchased. If you are listening to in a quiet place it might be fine, but for my purposes it was not functional.

I've been waiting years for this to come to Audible and wondered if it would succeed as an audiobook - it does.

The product description calls this novel a Christian parable-- and it is, but don???t expect a cute or motivational story, with a Joseph Girzone Christ-figure hero and a happily ever after (although there is an implied hope for faith enduring at the hands of materialism). The ???power and glory??? allusion is meant ironically . The novel describes people trapped in a country who ???were not hard hearted; they were watching the rare spectacle of something worse off than themselves??? in the whiskey priest hiding more rat-like than conventionally heroicly in the countryside. The characters' and their dialogue are more about internal struggle than the political struggle surrounding them. The style is more like Greene s Confidential Agent (individual trapped by impersonal forces of revolution struggling with metaphysical good and evil) than his more overtly political works which name political actions and forces as evil in themselves.

I think the narration very appropriate for the novel --a kind of British narration style (even though few characters are British) It's more read than narrated with many varied voices BUT that style suits the novel well. Green could use 5 colons in a paragraph when describing internal dialogue of alienated characters, so be prepared for a slow start to the listen.

A "whiskey" priest repeatedly escapes a lieutenant who is part of the regime suppressing Catholicism in Mexico. The priest questions his own worth, and towards the end comes to terms with God as he faces his execution.

I've seen many movies based on novels by Graham Greene, but this is the first I've read.

Based on the presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles. Calles' regime was known for its represive anti-Catholic phase.

Quality of the audio book was horrible. I listened at 1.5x speed, which seemed to help.

It was difficult to listen past the distortion of the recording and the awful voice of the narrator. Sounds like it was recorded in the 50's with a cheap microphone. Turning down all the bass and mid tones and turning up the high eq made it a little more bearable. Need to stop trusting audible and always preview the recording first....

What did you like best about this story?

The book itself is amazing have read it any times

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Bernard Mayes?

Anyone with a more human sounding voice. Mr. Mayes sounds like a dying frog.

This is classic Gramham Green struggling with his love/hate relationship with Catholicism. The "hero" is an alcoholic priest on the run from persecution in Mexico. He is a coward, he has fathered a child and yet he struggles to serve. He is totally believing of a very narrow Catholicism that condemns him. Today even many Catholics would consider his beliefs almost superstitious and yet he is true to them and is indeed heroic in many ways. I don't know if readers who are not familiar with the Catholicism of those times will understand or find it believable yet it is a powerful story.

What did you like best about this story?

The beautiful writing, the way Greene pulls you completely into the characters and their struggles. There is so much poverty, superstition, hatred and yet so much hidden strength. And how he faces the weaknesses in people - he has seen it all, including his own.

What does Bernard Mayes bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He read beautifully. He did not try to over-act the voices. He is the kind of reader I like.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The scenes when the priest on the run encounters people who initially disgust or frighten him and how he struggles to see them as they really are.

I keep listening to this book over again something always gets to me that I didn't fully get before. The image of the nameless Father being continually pared down to his essence, which is so pure, is compelling and strangely comforting. The narration is striking and quite funny in parts. Mr. Mayes has unusual voice that drew me in right away. I highly recommend this book.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Power and the Glory to be better than the print version?

Not better, but different aspects of the story were revealed. More portable.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Power and the Glory?

The scene in the crowded jail cell.The cruel ambivalence of the jailer.

What does Bernard Mayes bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His dialogue inflections are clarifying.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I didn't just cry, I was haunted by the story for days.

Any additional comments?

This story resembles what I have often observed occurring in real life. It is sad that there are not many such novels. It tells of a wayward man committed to be better than he is by nature, because he is a priest.